NORTHERN Sinfonia’s annual treat for tinies is a lovely start to Christmas.

The audience may be restless, but Howard Blake’s music is sublime, the perfect accompaniment to Raymond Briggs’ illustrations which first appeared on television in animated form in 1982.

The story is charming. A small boy makes a snowman and, in the magic of a Christmas night, shares some exciting adventures with him before the sun rises and the snowman, like so many good things, melts away.

Conductor Alan Fearon is an old hand at live accompaniment to films and he has the orchestra perfectly in synch with the moving images on screen.

Thirteen-year-old Emily Bullock (sharing the role with Finn Burridge, also 13) gives a brilliant, lump-in-throat rendition of Walking in the Air. The two youngsters sing with the Sage’s Quay Lads and Quay Lasses choirs for children aged eight to 16.

Before the interval Claire Tustin warms up the teddy-clutching crowd for a musical performance of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

Michael Rosen’s popular tale also works well to music, the orchestra players and audience uniting to create a series of moods and atmospheres.

There are two more performances today, at 11am and 5pm.

David Whetstone